On December 27, 2025, the National People's Congress of China published the "Trademark Law (Revised Draft)" (“Revised Draft”) and solicited public comments until February 10, 2026. This is the final round of public consultation. Unless there arises some major points of disagreement, the new Trademark Law is expected to be approved and promulgated in about six months.
Unlike the 2023 Draft for Comment, the current Revised Draft does not make subversive changes to the existing Trademark Law. Instead, it focuses on resolving prominent issues in practice and elevates mature administrative and judicial practices to legal provisions. Those highly controversial provisions in the 2023 Draft for Comment as below have all been deleted:
- Submitting statement for trademark use status every five years after trademark registration;
- prohibiting repeated applications, and
- compulsory transfer of malicious trademark to brand true owner
Individual clauses may be adjusted in subsequent reviews, but major changes are unlikely, and it is also improbable to reintroduce the controversial clauses from the 2023 Draft for Comment.
The Revised Draft contains 9 chapters and 84 articles (compared to 8 chapters and 73 articles in the current law). It embodies the legislative shift from an emphasis on registration to a stronger obligation of trademark use. Key amendments include:
- expanding the scope of protectable signs;
- imposing penalties for bad-faith trademark filings, regulating trademark use;
- strengthening the protection of well-known marks, and prohibiting abuse of trademark rights.
Procedural Changes
1. Shorten Opposition period from 3 months to 2 months to further reduce the trademark registration cycle (Article 35).
2. Specify examination suspension rules in administrative proceedings of rights validity (Paragraph 1 of Article 40).
Article 40: Examination in opposition, review of refusal, review of non-registration, and invalidation cases "shall generally be suspended" (in contrast to the current law "may be suspended") if its outcome depends on the result of another case pending before a court or the administrative competent authorities.
LexField:
This provision formalizes the CNIPA's 2023 "Specifications on Suspension Circumstances in Review Cases" and current practice. However, neither Article 40 nor the Specifications explicitly state whether examination shall await final and effective decision concerning the cited mark. Practice may vary and further clarification is anticipated.
3. A court shall consider the case circumstances existing at the time when appealed decision was made to hear the case and make decision regardless change of circumstances at the time when the court hears the case. (Paragraph 2 of Article 40, highly controversial clause).
Paragraph 2 of Article 40: When a court reviews a refusal review decision, a non-registration review decision, or an invalidation decision, it shall base its judgment on the factual circumstances existing at the time when the appealed decision or the decision of review of refusal was made.
LexField:
This provision will apparently cause waste of administrative resources and complicate the case proceedings because, if the obstacle from the cited mark is cleared, e.g. cancelled, abandoned, or assigned, it is unnecessary for the court to maintain the appealed decision based on the circumstances at the time of the CNIPA decision when the cited mark was not cleared. It could be subject to further improvement.
4. CNIPA may initiatively revoke trademark registrations that have not been used for three consecutive years or have been diluted to be generic terms (Paragraph 2 of Article 56).
The Revised Draft removes the draft provision of trademark owner commitment for use in every five years but adds this clause to strengthen trademark owner’s use obligation, which is meant to clear idle trademarks.
LexField:
It will be subject to implementing regulations as to how to practice this clause.
5. Motion trademark becomes available for trademark protection. (Article 14).
To meet the needs of digital development and protection, motion trademark shall be available for protection. However, scent marks, position marks, holograms, and trade dress remain unregistrable.
6. Strengthen protection for well-known trademarks.
Unregistered well-known trademarks are no longer limited to protection on similar goods or services. Like registered well-known trademarks, unregistered well-known trademarks are also entitled to cross-class protection (Article 20).
History records of protection is added as a factor to be considered in determining well-known trademarks. The history records of protection refer to both protections as a non-well-known mark and well-known mark (Article 62).
LexField:
This clause will help increase chances of success for those frequently being imitated trademarks to be recognized as well-known trademark.
7. Consolidate and clarify the legal basis for tackling bad-faith trademark applications (key clause, Article 18).
Article 18: Applications for trademark registration that are not filed for use purpose and clearly exceed the applicant’s business needs shall not be registered.
LexField:
This clause is put in the chapter on "Conditions for Trademark Registration". It implies that it is applicable to all proceedings of trademark validity confirmation, including preliminary examination, opposition, and invalidation. It means that, during the CNIPA preliminary examination, the CNIPA may directly reject malicious applications according to this article. It will significantly strengthen the crackdown on malicious trademark application and save cost and time resources for true brand owners.
How to define "applications that clearly exceed trademark applicant’s business needs" and whether it includes defensive registrations, it will depend on subsequent review and judicial practices and implementing regulations. It is probable that trademark application for reasonable defensive purpose and for sake of forward-looking trademark portfolio will still be permitted.
8. Penalties for malicious trademark application behaviors (Key clause, Article 53).
Article 53: Where a trademark registrant commits any of the following malicious trademark application behaviors that cause negative effects, the competent authorities responsible for trademark enforcement shall give a warning notification and may impose a fine of no more than RMB100,000:(1) Knowingly applying for trademark registration in violation of Article 15 of this Law (Misleading Clause);(2) Applying for trademark registration in violation of Article 18 of this Law (Malicious Trademark Application Clause);(3) Intentionally applying for trademark registration in violation of Articles 20 to 23 of this Law (Well-known Trademark Clause, Agent Squatting Clause, Infringement of Prior Rights Clause).
LexField:
This clause regulates malicious trademark registration behaviors, and commercial use of such a trademark is not a prerequisite for imposing penalties. It will undoubtedly further strengthen the crackdown on filing malicious trademark applications.
As to how to define "causing adverse effects", "knowingly", and "intentionally", it may be further specified in something like subsequent examination guidance.
It does not provide how to initiate proceeding of giving warning and imposing penalties but we believe that prior trademark registration proprietors and prior popular trademark owners should probably be in the position to file complaint with a local Administration for Market & Regulation (AMR) requesting penalty on the malicious trademark applicant.
9. Crackdown on "using registered trademarks in a manner that misleads the public" (key clause, Article 56).
Article 56: Where a registered trademark is used in a misleading manner, the competent authorities responsible for trademark enforcement shall order correction within a specified period of time. If the correction is not made in due time, a fine of not more than RMB 50,000 shall be imposed. If the circumstances are serious, the CNIPA shall revoke the registered trademark.
"Using registered trademarks in a misleading manner" includes: ① misleading regarding the characteristics of goods such as quality, specifications, or place of origin (violation of absolute clauses); and ② causing confusion regarding the source of products (violation of trademark similarity clauses), that is, harming the interests of specific trademark owners.
This article regulates the consequences of misleading effect as caused by deformed use of trademarks after registration. In serious situation, the trademark registration may be revoked. This provides a legal basis for cracking down on sneaky bad faith trademarks as frequently occur in reality.
Enforcement-Related Changes
10. The administrative competent authorities and judicial authorities are obliged to transfer a trademark infringement case to another competent authorities where they investigate the case and find the case is not subject to their responsibility but subject to another competent authorities (Article 72).
LexField:
This article is made to reduce the competent authorities’ buckpassing of cases and particularly facilitates the connection between administrative infringement action and criminal proceeding case involving trademarks.
11. Enforcement legal fees shall be calculated and compensated separately from the statutory damages. (Paragraph 2 of Article 74).
This provision is to emphasize the independence of trademark rights protection expenses. It increases the infringer’s liability of compensation. It is consistent with the current judicial practices and aligns with the provisions of the current Copyright Law and Patent Law.
In summary, the Revised Draft provides full-process regulations to guide legitimate trademark applications and use behaviors, and provides more remedies for more effectively tackling malicious trademark applications and improper trademark use behaviors. It returns to the legislative essence that trademark registration is based on use needs, and the order of legal provisions is more logically arranged. However, it is regrettable that consent letter practice, which have received high attention in practice, is not addressed. In addition, it will need being further regulated regarding how to appropriately allow both enterprises' forward-looking trademark registration that are yet for recent actual use purpose and ensure practice of the CNIPA’s ex officio cancellation based on non-use.
